A Hollywood paycheck is astronomically better than any other paycheck I’ve ever gotten, but it’s also just going to the same things as before. I’m still getting used to having some money in the bank. But $55,000 might as well have been a million to me at that time. When I Jezebel, during my quote-unquote negotiation - which I did not excel at - I think my boss offered me $50,000 and I was like, “I would prefer $55,000.” She was like, “Yeah, okay.” I clearly could have tried for $80,000. I remember calling my parents when I got my first grown-up job and being like, “They’re gonna pay me $32,000 dollars a year!” Like, I am rich. Nine years later, you’re a person with “executive producer” in your job title. In Shrill, the book, you write about not having the money to pay for your abortion the clinic allowed you to pay for the procedure after you got your next paycheck. West spoke with us about the relief of finally being able to afford dental work, her biggest splurges after getting her first book deal, and navigating the financial uncertainty inherent in making your living as a writer. Out this week, West’s second book, a collection of pop-culture analysis titled The Witches Are Coming, unpacks hypocrisies high and low, from the glaring privilege of Goop-era wellness to the mysterious unfunniness of Adam Sandler movies.

She’s now a writer and executive producer on Shrill, a Hulu series based on her 2017 memoir, in which SNL’s Aidy Bryant plays a young, semi-broke writer a lot like West herself used to be. In the years since, she’s become a New York Times columnist, a best-selling author, and the kind of Hollywood player who can afford, say, an exotic hotel suite with its own private pool. In 2010, Lindy West was living paycheck to paycheck as the film editor of Seattle’s alt-weekly newspaper The Stranger, when her viral review of Sex and the City 2 put her on the map.

Photo-Illustration: by Stevie Remsberg Photo: Jenny Jimenez

Shrill by lindy west